[REVIEW] Orphan: First Kill
One of a parent's greatest fear is to lose a child—either to death or the world. It’s a gut-wrenching thought that even just that alone can make your heart race without fail. Yet, what if your child does go missing? And comes back in the form of a mysterious child with curious tendencies?
Enter Director William Brent Bell’s Orphan: First Kill, the prequel starring Isabelle Fuhrman reprising her role as the unforgettable Esther aka Leena. We find Leena in Saarne Institute in Estonia, a place with dangerous minds of all sorts, and she is the most dangerous of them all. An art therapy instructor, Anna, is told just how menacing when the alarm is pulled because Leena has gotten out and they’re unable to find her. They place the instructor in a “safe” room, but we soon see it was certainly unsafe. Leena has made her way to this room, and just when we think she’s going to stab the instructor with her choice weapon of the moment (a pencil), she is taken away without too much of a fight. This is only because Leena has plans.
Leena is able to seduce a depraved individual who works as a security guard for this facility (it’s alluded that he may or may not be a p*dophile), easily dispatching him and escaping the institute without too much trouble while using the poor Anna to do so. Once she is free, she sees a “Missing” ad for Esther Albright in Anna’s place, and now we see how she is able to take on the identity of a missing child who just so happens to be the child of a very well-to-do family back in the States.
“Esther” is able to fool the family rather easily in the beginning. The father, Allen (Rossif Sutherland) is the easiest to play for a fool while the mother, Patricia Albright (played by Julia Stiles), has her suspicions but wants to believe that her child has come back home to them. But, when their son Gunnar (Matthew Finlan) meets “Esther” at the airport, he is careful. Detective Donnan (Hiro Kanagawa), who helped them retrieve their child back from Russia, is also cautious regarding how easy it seems that Esther just comes back into their lives. When the therapist notices that Esther appears to be extremely well adjusted considering how long she has been missing, Esther realizes she may have some trouble keeping up appearances due to making simple mistakes when keeping the character that is Esther up.
When the detective makes a move to see if Esther really is Esther, she makes a decision that we all knew would come sooner or later to protect her charade. As soon as she goes to solve the detective problem (stabbing him with a knife he leaves just lying around, a fatal mistake us horror fans know all too well leads to the demise of the character in question), an unexpected guest comes in and the entire movie goes into a direction that is both exciting and well-executed.
This long-awaited prequel serves up blood on a platter with kills that are well-done. It’s the perfect slasher film that plays on every parents’ fear when it comes to your child becoming a terrifying being, or a child masquerading as yours. Orphan: First Kill is grade-A horror that has a great cast. Seeing Julia Stiles in the role of Patricia Albright is a pleasant surprise, but Furhman absolutely steals the scene each time. She embodies the role of a sadistic, threatening person pretending to be a child due to a condition they can’t control, but certainly takes full advantage of.
Orphan: First Kill is available for streaming on Paramount+ now.
